After writing The Actual Worst Tag On Tumblr, it was suggested that I continue writing on the subject of eating disorders. This piece is the first of three pieces on eating disorders that I have planned. It tells my story, which is something I feel needs to be shared in order for you to fully understand why this issue is so close to my heart.
2002: Second Grade
There’s a girl looking at me in the mirror. I don’t think she’s me. She doesn’t look anything like me. Yes, I see Frieda and Fred, and all of the other freckles Aunt Candy helped me name are in the same spot on this girl, but she can’t be me.
She looks really sad. Sometimes, I think that she’s a skeleton because I can see her rib-cage through her skin. I don’t think that she eats enough. She can’t be me because I eat enough. At least I think I eat enough. Mommy says that I should really clear my whole plate, even the vegetables. I don’t like vegetables. I don’t know anyone else in the second grade that likes vegetables. They’re soggy and don’t taste good at all.
Even our hair is different. My hair is long and thick. Mommy always has to fight me to brush it. It’s even worse when one of us decides that I should wear pigtails. It always feels like she’s going to pull my hair out of my head! Our hair is the same brown color, but I don’t think the hair she’s lost has been from her Mommy brushing her hair. If I look closely, I can see spots with no hair. What little girl would ever lose her hair like that?
“Why do you look so sad? Are you sick?” I ask her.
“I don’t know,” she replies. I think I’m afraid for the girl in the mirror.
One night, after Mommy tucks Joey into bed, she comes and sits with me in bed. She tells me that she’s seen the girl in the mirror looking at me. She wraps her arms around me as she tells me about her friend in high school who saw the same girl. Her friend got so sick she had to go away.
“But I feel fine,” I tell Mommy.
“But you’re not eating the way you should. You’re a growing girl! You need to eat!,” she explains. “Something has to be happening to make you feel this way. Is it something you saw? Is someone making fun of you?”
“I dunno,” I reply, telling the truth, but it’s an answer she thinks is me not wanting to answer the question.
So I tell her a lie, and it’s a lie that my family, my counselor, and my teachers would believe for close to a decade. “Some kids on the bus told me I looked fat in my winter coat.” It was dark in my room, but I could tell the pain my mom must have felt. Looking back, I even feel sorry that I lied to her, but how was I supposed to know the truth when it was something that nobody really wanted to talk about? Sure, I saw through counseling, which was great, I loved my counselor. She would give me journals and tell me to write about my day. I suppose that’s why I got into writing. Sometimes she would bring her dogs to work, and sometimes we would just play.
2005: The Summer Before Fifth Grade
Two years have passed, and the girl in the mirror still looks back at me. “You know I’m not going to be able to make any friends right?” she asks. We’re going to be starting middle school soon.
“Don’t worry! We’ll make friends!” I tell her.
“Not if I don’t fit in. Who would want to be friends with a girl who looks like she’s falling apart?”
“But you have friends now! They’ll be going to school with us!”
“But things could change. People could be mean!”
“It won’t be that bad!” I say.
On an August day, middle school became the least of our problems. I was having a sleepover at Grammie’s house, which meant the girl in the mirror was spending time there too. Both of us were happy to be there, away from the screams that so often sent Joey and me upstairs to hide. Of course, neither me, the girl in the mirror, nor my brother had any idea what those screams meant. That is, until my week-long sleepover with Grammie was cut short by a phone call.
“We need to go see your mom,” Grammie says. There’s something in her voice that I don’t think I’ve ever heard before. Worry? Panic? I can’t place my finger on it.
“Why?” I ask. I can sense something big is happening. Curiosity gets the better of me.
“It’s your dad. He never showed up to work this morning.” My heart drops in my chest. That wasn’t like him. Something had to have happened, but Grammie wasn’t telling me anything.
When we reach my house, Mom is outside, crying. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her cry before, which only furthered my instinct that something is wrong. Dad arrives shortly after, with two men wearing suits that I had never seen before. The adults all go inside the house while Joey and I are left in the backyard to do what kids do best: use our imaginations.
“Who do you think those guys are with Dad?” Joey asks.
“I don’t know. But I bet you they’re aliens,” I reply. From what I’ve seen, the only people who wear fancy suits like that were in alien movies.
“Nah, they’re not aliens!” he replies. “They’re secret agents and they need Dad to fight off an alien invasion!” We laugh as we imagine our dad in a war against aliens.
Eventually, they leave, but what’s strange here is that in this case, “they” doesn’t just include the men my brother and I could have sworn were involved with aliens. “They” included Dad. Of course, the men and Dad leave separately, which means they did not need him for anything involving an alien invasion.
Later that night, I gain things bigger than the girl in the mirror to be afraid for. I learn the meaning of the word “heartbreak,” which is something that you feel that makes it feel as if your heart has been torn from your chest, cut into tiny pieces, and trampled on the ground, only to be placed right back in your chest again.
As Mom explains why we didn’t watch the news that night, something we almost always did, I become afraid for my family. More importantly, I become afraid of middle school, but not for the reasons that the girl in the mirror and I had discussed. I become afraid that everyone will know that I’m the daughter of a jailbird. I become afraid of being from a single parent house. I become afraid of divorce and of ever getting married.
Present Day
As hard as that night was, things did start to change for the girl in the mirror. She started to eat again. One night, as I went to greet her, I even noticed that she looked more like a girl, and less like a skeleton. Her hair, instead of falling out, started to grow wild and uncontrolled. Even though there was sadness in her eyes, there was more life than had ever been there before. It seemed my reflection and I were finally starting to agree.
It wasn’t until recently that I realized why this was. It was after a rather bad fight with my anxiety, and I had decided to see one of the counselors on my college’s campus. She asked why I had seen a counselor before, and I told her. I told her about the girl in the mirror, my parents’ divorce, and my father’s time spent in prison.
I told her about my lie. It as such a relief to tell someone about my lie. She had the same question that my mom did all those years ago. Why? She was more willing to accept that I didn’t know why, but she still wanted to know. We spoke of my childhood. The times that my brother and I would hide away while my parents would fight. The time my father would tease me, not even stopping when I started to cry, but rather only stopping when someone else told him to.
She realized that’s what it was. Somewhere, my mind decided not eating would be the best way to cope with my father’s teasing. The girl in the mirror only looked like that because she was trying to run away. Part of me felt relief, and the other part of me couldn’t believe it. How could my father be so cruel as to push me to that? How could my body think that slowly killing itself would be the best solution? How did nobody catch this until I was an adult?
I still see the girl in the mirror, but now, I hardly question if she’s me. Her hair is shorter, but not because it’s falling out. Her eyes may not be as blue, but they’re happy. Instead of an outline of ribs, I see a little bit of fat, and while that might bother some people, it doesn’t bother me. I no longer feel afraid that the girl in the mirror is going to perish. Instead, I look at her with love, and feel a deep satisfaction that she and I are the same person.
